digital music and the music business

MTV, VH1, CMT Debut Free Artist Opportunities Hub

(UPDATE 2) Expanding on a partnership that began a year ago with Topspin, Viacom music properties including MTV, VH1 and CMT are upgrading their artist/fan hub to include direct opportunities for artists across the company's many online, broadcast and live channels which reach 100 million homes and 50 million online fans monthly.

Examples of free opportunities offered to artists:

“Starting today, artists of all
levels and genres will be featured across our television channels, sites,
stages, blogs, social channels, concert tours, radio shows, and most
importantly, provided a direct link to their fans via artist platform,” said Van Toffler,
President of Viacom Music Group.

Video Rotation on MTV, VH1, CMT, MTV2,
MTV Hits, MTV Jams, VH1 Soul, and CMT Pure: Artists can submit music videos for on-air
consideration via the platform for potential on-air music video rotation. MTV, VH1 and CMT’s music teams will evaluate videos based on the fan engagement on each artist’s page. Selected artists will receive
an email that their video has been viewed and then notified when and where it
will go into video rotation.

Music Video / Track Spotlight across MTV/VH1/CMT's
Editorial Network, including MTV Buzzworthy,
MTV Hive,
CMT Edge, and VH1 Tuner: Artists can submit music
videos and tracks to be featured across MTV/VH1/CMT's network of music
editorial sites, which reach 8 miion unique visitors monthly

Partner Opportunities:

Open for Hunter Hayes’ NY show - Grammy nominated Hunter Hayes is using the artist platform to crowd source the opening act for his NYC
concert in June. Based on fan support (measured through traffic on the page and
plays of their videos), the list of potential opening acts will be narrowed
down to ten with Hunter selecting the opening act.

The Hangout
Music Fest will give two artists slots at the Gulf
Shores, Ala. festival. Artists opting into the Hangout Music Fest
opportunity will be eligible to play the festival, receive all-access passes, travel,
lodging, and recording opportunities on the John Lennon
Educational Tour Bus. Based on fan support, the list of potential bands
will be whittled down to 10 and then open to a fan vote with the two top vote
getters earning the spots to play the festival.

What's Next

The artist platform has three interconnected entries: Artists.MTV,
Artists.VH1 and Artists.CMT. Prior to be connected to the larger Vicaom Music eco-system, which is rolling out over the coming weeks, these sites already have 2 million visitors a month with each fan spending more than
four minutes per visit.

Additional opportunities to follow include song submission
to be featured in specific MTV/VH1/CMT shows, on HD music chanel Palladia.

In the coming months, MTV,VH1 and CMT will introduce a mobile app and more artist commerce tools,. Brand partnerships that will connect advertisers with up and coming artists are also planned.

How To Sign Up

To update your presence on
all Viacom sites at once, go to any of the 3 artist portals (i.e. http://www.mtv.com/artists/) and in the upper right corner click on “Are You An
Artist?” to learn more or “Claim Your Page”. Start by uploading a photo, sync your social accounts and choose songs and videos to feature.

While there are opportunities to sell goods for a fee using Topspin, there is no charge to sign up or to upload material. Tour dates across Viacom sites are delivered via Songkick.